How to Make Excel Track Changes in a Workbook? 4 Easy Tips
Note: This tutorial on the Excel track changes feature is suitable for Excel 2016 and later versions including Office 365.
Sharing your workbooks with your team may introduce unintended errors or data mishaps in your spreadsheets. Even identifying these changes manually will take a lot of time, resulting in confusion.
To save your precious time and effort from such accidents, Excel has a new Track Changes feature.
This will come in handy when you need to track the changes made by others or yourself in a particular workbook.
In this tutorial, I will show you how to use the Excel Track changes feature easily.
Related:
How to Extract an Excel Substring? – 6 Best Methods
How to Superscript in Excel? (9 Best Methods)
How To Find Duplicates in Excel? (3 Easy Methods)
Track Changes in Excel – An Overview
After you enable the “Excel track changes” feature, every time you edit a cell, it will be highlighted with a border and an indicator. Clicking on these marked cells will display the changes made to the cell.
Now, any reviewer can verify these changes and accept or reject them permanently.
Please note that this feature may not work properly if there is a table in your worksheet. So, it is advisable to convert them into normal data ranges by going to Design Tab>Convert to Range.
Note: Some latest versions of Excel, like Office 365, may not display the Track Changes feature under the Review tab. If that is the case, you have to manually add it to the Review tab by going to File > Options > Customize Ribbon. Once you are there, drag the Track Changes feature from the left side commands column and place it in the right side column. Now, it’ll appear in the Review tab.
How to Enable the Excel Track Changes feature?
To enable the track changes to feature, follow these steps:
Step 1: Go to the Review Tab and in the Changes group. Click on Track Changes >Highlight
Changes.
Step 2: In the Highlight Changes window, click on the ‘Track changes while editing. This
also shares your workbook’, option and Click OK.
Here, you can also specify which user can edit the spreadsheet etc. in the
‘When’, ‘Who’, and ‘Where’ sections.
That’s all. You have enabled tracking changes in Excel. Hereafter, Excel will track changes made in the worksheet.
Please keep in mind that you have to save the Excel file locally on your device for this feature to work. If not done, Excel will prompt you to do so.
Also Read:
How to Use Goal Seek in Excel? (3 Simple Examples)
How to Insert Multiple Rows in Excel? The 4 Best Methods
How to Autofit Excel Cells? 3 Best Methods
How does Track Changes in Excel Work?
Once you have turned on the Excel track changes feature, all cell changes made by the allowed users will be highlighted by a blue coloured border with a small triangle on the top left corner.
If many users contribute to these changes, each user will be assigned a different coloured border.
Hover over these cells to see the message box that contains the change details. It will show who made the change at what time, along with the actual change.
Note that, enabling this feature, automatically shares the workbook. This disables some important features like protecting sheets, conditional formatting, sorting and filtering.
How to List all Changes Made in a Sheet?
Sometimes, it is advisable to list all changes in a separate sheet for clarity, especially if there are too many changes to track. To do this, follow these steps:
Step 1: Save your workbook and Go to Review>Track Changes>Highlight Changes.
Step 2: In the Highlight Changes window, click on the ‘List changes on a new sheet’ option
and click OK.
Now, all changes will be displayed in a separate sheet.
How to Accept or Reject Changes Made by Others?
The changes made in a Workbook are not final as long as the tracking mode is enabled. You have to review them and either accept or reject these changes.
Step 1: To do this go to Review>Track Changes>Accept/Reject Changes.
Step 2: In the ‘Select Changes to be Accepted or Rejected’ window, you can specify which
changes you want to review. Enter inputs into the ‘when’, ‘who’ and ‘where’ boxes and click OK.
‘When’ accepts specific dates or status like ‘Not yet Reviewed’.
‘Who’ accepts specific usernames or ‘Everyone’.
‘Where’ accepts a range of cells, where you need to review.
Step 3: In the next Accept/Reject Changes window, you can accept or reject changes one
by one or in one go.
If you reject a change, the original value will be restored. If you accept a change, the
the new value will be finalised and it can not be undone.
How to Disable Track Changes in Excel?
It is advisable to disable the Excel track changes feature as soon as you are done with sharing and reviewing other’s entries.
To do this, go to the Review tab and click on Track Changes>Highlight Changes.
Uncheck the ‘Track changes while editing his also shares your workbook’, option and Click OK.
Once you do this, Excel will no longer display the blue coloured highlights and will stop tracking changes made in the workbook.
Suggested Reads:
How to Group Worksheets in Excel? (In 3 Simple Steps)
How to Shade Every Other Row in Excel? (5 Best Methods)
How to Use the Excel Fill Handle Easily? (Top 3 Uses with Examples)
FAQs
How to track changes in Excel?
Excel has a built-in track changes feature as part of the Shared workbooks utility. To use this got to the Review tab and click on the Track changes option under the Changes group.
How do I view edit history in Excel?
If you are using the Office 365 version of Excel, you can view the edit history after you have saved it in Onedrive. To do this, go to the File tab and click on the Version history option under the Info section. If prompted, click OK to save your workbook in the Onedrive cloud. After doing this, you can view the edit history of that Excel workbook.
Closing Thoughts
That’s everything about how to track changes in Excel. Hereafter, implement this technique before you share it with your team members and avoid errors. If you have any questions regarding this or any other Excel feature, please let us know in the comments. We are always happy to help.
If you need more high-quality Excel guides, please check out our free Excel resources centre.
Ready to dive deep into Excel? Simon Sez IT has been teaching Excel for over ten years. For a low, monthly fee you can get access to 100+ IT training courses. Click here for advanced Excel courses with in-depth training modules.
Adam Lacey
Adam Lacey is an Excel enthusiast and online learning expert. He combines these two passions at Simon Sez IT where he wears a number of different hats.When Adam isn't fretting about site traffic or Pivot Tables, you'll find him on the tennis court or in the kitchen cooking up a storm.
